Ralph Waldo Emerson

The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

The ancestor to every action is a thought.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matter compared to what lies within us.

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

Whoso would ever be a man, must be a noncomformist.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall...

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!

Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

Do the thing and you will have the power.

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency.

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should.

I see it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the supreme being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will become too late.

I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk but after the counsel of his own bosom.

A great man is always willing to be little.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; … he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm.

Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward "signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men," is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.

Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defiant though he look he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

Life consists of what a man is thinking about all day.

Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string.

How much of human life is lost in waiting!

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.

The crime which bankrupts men and states is job-work—declining from your main design, to serve a turn here and there. Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life, nothing is great or desirable if it is off from that. I think we are entitled here to draw a straight line and say that society can never prosper but must always be bankrupts, until every man does that which he was created to do.

The ancestor to every action is a thought.

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The hero is no braver than the ordinary man. But he is braver for five minutes longer.

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

The characteristic of genuine heroism, is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself… Serve and thou shall be served.

To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will...

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

Envy is ignorance. Imitation is suicide.

O friend, never strike sail to a fear!

And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day.

Speak what you think today in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

Do not go where the pay may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished--by fear…be honest with a man and you have no fear. Try to deceive and the relationship deteriorates.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

Fear is a great instructor.

I care not so much what I am to others as to what I am to myself.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Greatness once and forever has down with opinion.

A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.

The first wealth is health.

Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the incarnation and nutriment of their design.

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe.

[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely to truth itself.

Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.

Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks he is!

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty.

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.

There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.

Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.

When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

The soul refuses limits & always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart.